I had a little disagreement with some folk on the internet the other day, I was making the point that if you looked at Ivan Gs resume without the context of how football works, you might think he’s blown shit up since he’s been at Arsenal. It’d be pretty easy to hoodwink newbies in the game.
Well, Swiss Ramble dove head first into the numbers and showed quite how bland a job our exiting CEO has done.
As talk intensifies of a potential move of Arsenal’s chief executive, Ivan Gazidis, to Milan, I thought it would be interesting to look at how the club’s financials have developed since he arrived in January 2009. Some thoughts in the following thread #AFC #Milan #ACMilan
— Swiss Ramble (@SwissRamble) August 23, 2018
This part was particularly damning.
‘#AFC revenue has grown by an impressive £198m under Gazidis, only outpaced by #MCFC £366m & #MUFC £303m in absolute terms. However, this was the 2nd smallest % growth of Big 6.’
The other damning indictment of his tenure was our “we deliberately kept some powder dry” strategy that led to us sitting on a pile of cash that diminished in value by 25%+ every summer as the value of players skyrocketed. If challenged, he could say things were tight at Arsenal, but you can’t lie about the huge cash pile that he sat on.
There are so many other shockers I’d be asking about over the years.
Why didn’t you hire in a better scout?
Why didn’t you have the power to enforce a Director Of Football?
What happened with StatDNA?
Why did it take you 10 years to convince the owner that his prized asset was crashing the club?
Milan has hired in an administrator if he does move, good luck to them. The big question for us, is who do the club go in for now? Football CEOs aren’t exactly in abundance.
Emery has been talking to the press about his desire to control more of the game this weekend.
‘My idea is first control, but the opposition want the same. With this control, you can be near to win and then know when you need to change the rhythm. I know we need intensity in every moment in the games. This control is to not let the opposition play. For example in the two first matches, we didn’t have the control [enough – only in some moments, but not like what we need to find to win. Saturday is another match, tactically it will be different. It will be demanding and I want to have more control to find the win in this match.’
You’d imagine West Ham are going to afford us a lot more possession than Chelsea and City, so it’ll be interesting to see how aggressive we move at them, and what the style looks like. Emery reckons we’re toying with three different systems.
‘We are working on different situations tactically. In the first we are playing with four at the back, then we have two and one, and one and two. With two and one, it is like a 4-2-3-1 and one, two, is for a 4-1-4-1 or a 4-3-3. We have players who train in this system. The moment on the pitch is different. If we need to improve in this mobility, the quality is very important, but also how the player is moving on the pitch. I think with two systems, we can continue to progress and think about winning the next match.’
The line up this weekend is going to be very interesting. Xhaka has had a lot of problems, but arguably, against a shite team, he’ll fare better. But for me, the easy games are when the coach should start exploring his best line up. Give LT a start. There’s no point in fucking around with a player who offers monumental X-press-dynamical-contraband stats, but gives up opportunities for fun every game. The stats nerds are all preaching that Xhaka offers us something unique going forward, hinting its hard to replace, without seeing what LT and Guendouzi can offer us.
Now, I’m pretty sure Guendouzi knows how to move the ball forward aggressively, we’ve been drying off damp panties all week watching his highlight videos. From all the tactical write ups I’ve read about Torreira, I’m pretty certain the dynmaic DM knows how to move the ball forward as well. Regardless, it can’t be an argument that because a player has one strong attribute, we should allow ourselves to indulge his weaknesses which include being terrible defensively, slow, and easily rattled under pressure.
The Xhaka argument is Arsene Wenger 2.0. It has all the same folk that argued ‘Judge him in May’ pushing the notion that your eyes and OH GOD NO tears might be lying to you. Arsene Wenger, during his great years, convinced fans to trust in his superior judgement. That created a group of fans who constantly want to tell you why our footballing disasters are in fact creating ‘hidden in plain sight’ MOM performances that only the elite can see. Telling that both Aaron and Ozil have been called out for not doing a job for the team inside the opening 2 games by a proper coach.
The dream of two up front is still just that…
‘At the moment, no. At the moment, I think we need to have the control with the possession, with the positioning on the pitch, with more players inside. And after this possession, to do the attacking moments and defending moments with this balance. But, it is one possibility to continue in our progress and in one moment to try also to play with two scorers. In the last match of the pre-season, against Lazio, I did it with Lacazette and Nketiah. But also, this position also for the players, they know that in one moment we can do that. But at the moment, no.’
Let’s see where that idea goes as the season progresses, hard to see how Lacazette works into our system because of his lack of pace. I wonder how many chances Eddie lands this season? Also, I like that Auba is in crisis after two games without a goal… the coach has these words for him.
‘The first is to create chances, situations and attacking moments where the player arrive in the box and with the balance to use the small space the opposition gives us. And then, I am sure they are going to score if we create a lot of chances in the game. The first idea for us on Saturday is to create these chances and then the players’ confidence for starting to arrive in the box, to score. Maybe the players can not score three good chances in one match and on another day, I am sure they are going to do maybe the same chances in one match and score three. For that, Aubameyang is a player who, in his career, has scored a lot and he is going to do that here also.’
RIGHT, that’s me done, listen to our podcast.
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1st
2nd
3rd
Tr4phy
Clean sweep!
That’ll do 🙂
I’m going to interrupt your gay pride parade.
He’s gotta play Lucas and Matty on Saturday, surely?
Damn it…
Tro4hy slipped again
I’m predicting a very comfortable win on Saturday.
Also who cares about Gazidis. Utterly replaceable
I predict a very tough win, as the huge pressure of the obligation to get the first points under Emery will totally paralyse our bunch of pussies, leads by Bellerin and Ozil, of course.
Lose and Emery is a cunt.
Draw. See above.
Win well. Papers over obvious cracks. False sense of security ensues.
Win badly. See points one and two.
GOH
Don’t worry, the world could end before Saturday.
Chill out.
Wenger back!!
(lol)
I think we will win this one for sure. Not too worried. Id like to see us give them a real thrashing.
M24
I am chilled. Merely explaining the life cycle of Arsenal FC.
GOH
Remind me.
Were you in the Wenger out camp?
The cracks have been papered over for ten years.
Give Emery a wee bit more time to fix things.
Emery is in trouble if he cant “control” West Ham.
The only scares in this game could be if the team get too comfortable in the match with too much control become lapse over-confident and switch off defensively at the wrong times.
A comfortable win is expected.
We are winning on Saturday
Emery does like his moments. Can’t make a sentence without the word moments in it
Life is full of moments…
Carl Jenkinson
Significant sprain to right ankle. Aiming to return to training in November
Yeah aiming to return. Fucking leech
Karim,
You still think I’m an idiot?
https://www.google.com.ng/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-45281902
Get your acts together EUROPE! and deport this folks. They will never assimilate.
Now back to arsenal
Laurent Koscielny is back in training. I think when fit him and Sokratis might make a decent partnership
Koscielny expected back in November
There’s always been an inordinate number of idiots on the site. Now, it’s gone completely out of control.
Sort it out Pedro. The site needs an idiot-filter.
Koscielny expected back in November
No date has been set yet. He is back training much sooner than anticipated though
@radio raheem,
Are you referring to Pedro getting me banned? Don’t be such a coward and come straight.
I couldn’t give a flying beep if I get banned. I will not be censored. Typical leftist behavior. Get x banned.
M24
Wenger out since 2008/09.
The same freaking “judge so & so on May” lot are out here day after day criticizing the new regime at Arsenal after just TWO bloody games.. And that too against the last two champions of the league who have continuously added further talents to their already good squads. What’s wrong with these morons? I declare this.. You idiots don’t have to wait till May for the changes to manifest on the way Arsenal improves under Emery.. Just wait till 10 games.. That’s it before you shameless Wenger worshippers will have to eat your dogshit pie Didn’t you see the… Read more »
What good will a totally busted Kos do in this arsenal team?
He’ll end up doing a BFG and become a totem for the team. Which may not actually be a bad thing…but Kos isn’t the leader the BFG is.
Arsenal can’t become a retirement home for more broken footballers. We’ve had way too many of those.
https://www.arsenal.com/news/team-news-kolasinac-maitland-niles-koscielny
https://www.arsenal.com/news/we-need-be-patient-koscielny
November
Over the past 2 weeks I have also made the case that Arsenal have underperformed in financial stakes. Swiss Ramble presents it always much more analytically than I can do, but the most important facts, which expands further Pedro’s comments about Gazidis performance is that this summer we spent almost £70 million in transfer market, which more or less covers our net spend from Emirates, Puma and Ruanda sponsorship. Yet eight other clubs spent more in transfer window than us and significantly that did not include either Man City or Spurs. The bottom line is that the club’s handling of… Read more »
Sanmi I don’t want you to get banned I just want you to drop dead. We’ve got enough callous dumbshits in the world. Too many in fact
every one has a point, but for those( i.e from cleaners at the emirates, to fans, to supporters, to pundits, to staffs and the board and managers and coaches even the fucking big Sam alladyces )who haven’t seen any form of improvement in our games thus far after two games, should take their heads of their neck and shove it up their ass.
Sanmi
You have to be dim to believe the things you post here.
Ramsey has told Emery that he sees himself as a central midfielder and has made it clear he wants to be played there.
The former Cardiff player is also demanding £225,000-per-week, double the amount he currently earns.
I mean who is he to demand anything we should be demanding that he stays fit for a whole season and tracks back. Also CM? Alarm bells
Said for years that Basis is was out of his depth financially and commercially.
Wasn’t helped by the fact that Arsene Wenger created the most apathetic fan base in football in recent years.
Even a few months ago we made a huge mistake giving Emirates our training shirt sponsorship basically for free.
Our rivals all make extra money from training kit sponsorship and we probably didn’t even try to seperate them out.
Mark Noble apparently out of the game. Might see Jack Wilshere and Carlos Sanchez in their midfield. Which is hilarious
nepGunner
Nice post.
I’m also “having a ball seeing Arsenal slowly but steadily progressing after a horrible decade under Wenger”.
It seems that those who became intoxicated by the Wenger methods and philosophies, will never tolerate change.
What they also can’t tolerate are those of us who wanted Wenger gone years ago. We are seen as the anti-Christ and not, as most simpletons would know, the true saviours of AFC.
Yes, they keep saying they wanted Wenger out, but they were still prepared to keep kissing his ass in the name of “the team”.
Pathetic!
Cheers.
Can anyone explain to me the Rwanda shirt sponsorship deal?
I think this was discussed several months back on here.
Is £30m the correct figure?
Doesn’t sit right with me.
“Karim,You still think I’m an idiot?”
I’ll say this much Samni, that’s not the question I’d be firing out to folk on here with any regularity if I were you.
I’ll save you a comment/post in case you’re doing the rounds. Yes, I think you are. Bigly.
Yes Michael 30 million
Michael24
Explain in what capacity?
Yep, the figures are correct. Rwanda tourism board have hitched their wagon to us based on our exposure. There were figures backing their investment also, just some detraction because it’s not a private entity I’d imagine.
Wise move if you ask me, roi potential is massive.
That Sanmi guy is a real prick
So much is made of us being pointless at the moment, I’d expect us to easily dispatch of the Hammers on Saturday. They have been woeful so far.
Our results have too, but i can see some positives.
Nep gunner “I have to admit, I’m having a ball seeing Arsenal slowly but steadily progressing after a horrible decade under Wenger and the sour AKB cunts loosing their mind over this progress..” At the moment the team has shown little, if any, progress which I suppose is understandable due to the opposition we have played. Emery has a nice run of games to sort out the formation and tactics so it is not unreasonable to expect some progress. What people like nep gunner do not quite get is that the supporters who refused to shower abuse on wenger are… Read more »
Visit Rwanda is the best sleeve sponsor that Ivan can get us…
what a joke!
My first thought several weeks ago when it was rumoured that Ivan was off was , ‘Ah, he’s making space for the boss’s son’.
He was a spin merchant, a PR man. That seemed to change when he started to bring in his ‘brains trust’ of people with contacts and know-how. After hiring them, and hiring Emery, it’s hard to understand why he would want to leave.
Maybe he thinks the task at Arsenal is hopeless. Or maybe he loves Italian food.
Or maybe Stan told him to prepare the ground for Josh.
I can see Jack going right through GOON DOUZI if the Hair is showing him up.?
“Visit Rwanda is the best sleeve sponsor that Ivan can get us…
what a joke!”
Visit Rwanda — No genocides since 1994!
englandsbest, he’s off for money and a lot of it if what’s reported is true.
Paulinho- regarding your reply to Pierre on Torreira as a box to box midfielder scoring goals , you know how many goals in 2 years and 72 matches at Sampdoria- a great 4-
I wouldn’t be too harsh on Ivan whatever the numbers, until 2018 he was CEO in name only.
Wenger handled all the things mentioned here, he is why we didn’t get a better scout, indeed Wenger insisted in keeping the beyond useless Steve Rowley on an ad hoc basis when Sven arrived.
NW9 gooner
Paulinho has an Aaron Ramsey syndrome.
He believes that what is needed in the Arsenal team is a box to box midfielder.
To be honest, the last thing we need in midfield is another Aaron Ramsey…. Surely we need a midfielder who will protect our fragile defence.
It amazes me that the fans like Paulinho who abused wenger for so long about his lack of tactical knowledge, still persist in wanting box to box midfielders….
The main area where wenger failed was failing to create a balance in central midfield and here we have Paulinho who actually wants to replicate Wenger’s idea of playing a box to box midfielder in a 2 man midfield….in fact he regards ramsey as our most influential player and now expects Torriera to play that role.
Gazidis is being offered a massive salary by the owners Elliot and likely equity in the club simply to stabilise the club get it running well financially for them to then sell it.
He will earn at least twice his Arsenal salary a year and will be given equity which means he will earn a small fortune for work that will total a few years.
I doubt it has anything to do with being pushed out or because he has doubts about Arsenal.
If that is the deal you cannot blame him.
Countless articles and examples highlighting Wenger’s lack of understanding of tactics yet still his blind followers refuse to believe.
Pierre Your post highlights what a chameleon you are. You live in a perfect world. A world that allows you to sit and pass judgement on others, whilst sitting in the comfort of your armchair with a glass of chablet in one hand and cigar in the other. You must take great comfort in the knowledge that you are one of the reasons why we find ourselves in this predicament, willing to give Wenger the time and and freedom to dismantle the club over a ten year period, but unwilling to give Emery any breathing space whatsoever, as he trys… Read more »
Pierre
Your loyalty holds no bounds.
A real gem of a supporter.
Cheers!
Thank you michael but flattery will get you nowhere
Michael24 – Cheers!
If you line up all suspects of a robbery (guilty and innocent) and shout out loud “chop the burglar’s feet”..the guilty ones will be the first ones to lift their legs to safety.
Jog on Pierre
lol Micheal is a two-faced Weasal, he shouldn’t be taken serious,I mean no one should buy his lamentations, he famously denounced his support for the club in favour of mighty Fulham,what a legend
Dunno about people with opinions of improvement on last season’s performances, haven’t seen anything like that myself, of course the point board has us on 0 points out of 6, but whats more troubling is the dishonesty and self-delusion from some fans that there’s been improvements on last season’s outing, is there? OK a supposedly worse team managed a draw a Stamford last season,This new era hasn’t really taken off then Would be interesting to see the performance against West Ham which is widely expected to be a convincing win for us, point is Emery might soon be running out… Read more »
No Victorious it’s just been two matches against two of the best teams. If any of our chances had gone in against Chelsea we would have one. Even against MC we had two offside goals and a couple of bad misses. We will get there- just patience
Won not one
In Unai We Trust
Victorious
How long are you willing to give Emery a chance to sort out the shitfest in our team?
I am giving him a full season, to allow the players to actually learn something and get used to the new methods.
Schalke sporting executive Christian Heidel – “The English agents currently bug you from morning to night because probably they have 100 players to give away in England,” Heidel told Deutschlandfunk. “They sometimes have 30 to 40 players in the squad, and you can see how difficult it is for the English to offload their fringe players “The squads get bigger and bigger,” he said. “They might even have to build new stands, just for the players who don’t make the matchday squad. “You could argue the money’s there, but the question is, if someone’s in the stands for six months,… Read more »
Pierre – Did you pay any attention whatsoever to us when we won all those titles? Vieira and Petit took the game to the opposition, and didn’t spend the whole match in front of the back four. How did that work out last week by the way? You had your two central midfielders sitting deep in the second half and we were, lets see, shit and Chelsea found it a piece of cake to run all over us. NW9 – Nice Wikipedia job but my overall point was that Torreira has more to his game than just sitting in front… Read more »
whats more troubling is the dishonesty and self-delusion from some fans that there’s been improvements on last season’s outing, is there?
Of course.
Paulinho he does but he’s not box to box. He’s not just someone who sits he’s more than that
Marko – Most midfielders are box-to-box to some extent. We are in this silly era where people are obsessed with these silly tags, but as I said, you have to get around the pitch and I hope Torreira has the legs to press higher at times and impact the game in every area. He was far too passive last week.
I am giving him a full season, to allow the players to actually learn something and get used to the new methods.” Quite the patience you’ve got there,not sure majority our fan-base will endure that long though IF performances doesn’t take a leap from last season,also think the ‘shitfest’ angle is a bit ott, I mean a new manager comes in and he’s not been put over a barrel to play players he perceives to be SHIT because at the end of the day it’s on him to deliver results,point is other club’s change managers and I don’t see their… Read more »
Paulinho I feel like this broad definition or not wanting to put silly tags on midfielders is a prelude to defending Ramsey for example. I can see it coming. In my opinion if you play in Arsenal’s midfield you MUST do defensive work especially if you consider that we struggle defensively and have a poor back 4. So Torreira’s ability and pace to get up and down is down the list of worries for our midfield imo
Don’t worry Vic after Wenger’s mess we’ll give Emery plenty of time
Emery needs to get the back 4 sorted out first. Get Lichsteiner in the team and Monreal on the other side then just remind the centre backs to drop 10 yards when it looks as if a ball is about to come over the top. you’d think they’d learn that when they’re a teenager.
After that i’d say it’s a no brainer about Guendouzi and Torreira in the middle. what he does up top is up to him. I’d play both Auba and Laca but I’m less concerned about this than getting the spine right.
There has to be an element of box to boxism in most midfielders. Some are specialists at depending but frankly speaking Ramsey is not a box to box CM. They normally arrive late in the box and are rarely ahead of the strikers. Ramsey, most of the times wait in the box, ahead of the no9, to be fed chances. The season he scored all those goals (he was rarely ahead of play), and the half season before that (where he was mostly deep and yet had engine to stabilize and make forward runs) that’s what he needs to bring… Read more »
Victorious Quite the patience you’ve got Yes. I do. You supported a manager 10+ years who ended up being mired in an ego trip more than ensuring that the team was up for winning a Very trophy like it was during the Invincibles era. the nous has always been on THE MANAGER And you have the gall to write this when you blindly supported AW failure during his last 10 years? …. Fuck me mate, where is your patience to allow a manager to rectify the mistakes left behind by AW. The reason I am giving Emery a full season… Read more »
*every
In terms of patience – we can all be patient – God knows we had to with wenger for 15 years. but if we finish outside the top 4 it will just get harder and harder each year to get back in. How much money will we have to spend in the summer if we are in Europa again? I’m guessing possibly less than £50m. And KEEPING our best players might become impossible (other than Ozil who will lap up his £350k forever). I believe that managed properly and as long as we dont suffer too much bad luck we… Read more »
Victorious
You shifted the blame on players many a time when hopeless Wenger was called out.
Marko – No prelude needed, I’ve already said that about Ramsey numerous times and think people talk a lot of one-sided shit about his flaws and the overall impact they have. He DOES do defensive work, not just the in the obvious ‘sit in the front of the back four’ way the likes of you and Pierre are obsessed with.
Ramsey apparently wants to be a CM. I personally haven’t seen anything from him the last couple seasons that suggests that’s his best position
If Ramsey wants to be a CM he needs to greatly improve his discipline and the basics of his game.
It sounds a little to me though like guff put out by his team to try to cloud the fact he’s looking for £220 000 a week.
Paulinho first off don’t lump me in with Pierre. Secondly he doesn’t and if he’s put in a midfield two in front of the back 4 that’s where he needs to be putting in his defensive work otherwise you’re leaving the other midfielder doing too much. This notion that Ramsey does his defensive work in a more subtle way higher up the pitch isn’t based on realities
DB10
You might want to dig into the archive to see the year I stated a certain yank should have pulled the plug on Wenger, The certain yank is the real stumbling block to arsenal’s pursuit of greatness
I love though how you’ve somehow made it about Wenger, when there’s a new manager in charge making some baffling decisions regarding players selections and can’t seem to settle himself on a settled first 11,
You know we can talk about Emery’s weaknesses without dabbling about Wenger right? I don’t want to believe you one of the Wenger obsessive
Victorious you never wanted him gone. Never
Marko – I’ve told you before there was a stat not long back that no other midfielder won the ball back more than Ramsey in the opposition’s half, so the no defensive work is utter bollocks, he just does it higher up in a front foot fashion.
I suppose you would prefer if just as he was about to win the ball back higher up the pitch, he pulled out, ran forty yards back towards his own goal, and waited to tackle there so he might get some credit from fans like you.
Victorious
He has only managed two (!) games and you already have your knife out for him!
My comparison to Wenger is simply that he was allowed so many years to rectify his mistakes yet you after 2 fucking games and yet here you are ready to say that he might not be it. So predictable. It was said on this blog that you guys would be the first to hang the new manager to dry. We are ready to let the new manager do what is required. How about you?
I suppose you would prefer if just as he was about to win the ball back higher up the pitch, he pulled out, ran forty yards back towards his own goal, and waited to tackle there so he might get some credit from fans like you. I’d prefer if he was 40 yards back playing as a CM yes. I can’t imagine how a CM any CM in Europe in a midfield two gets away with being 40 yards forward. I couldn’t care less about any kind of bullshit stats you’d pull out of thin air my judgement comes from… Read more »
He has only managed two (!) games and you already have your knife out for him!” Far from it Emery should rightly be given time to mould the team on his image, but how long should that time be will remain subjective according to the team’s performances, The worry is when supporters become pom-pom wavers and blind sheeps pinning blames on irrelevancies instead of saying it as it is, For instance the moment the team trotted out for the second half against the chavs and straightaway u could see something was wrong and we were eventually gonna concede but worringly… Read more »
Hey Marko! learnt you were worry sick about Wenger’s whereabout:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-45257301
Thank me later.
Marko – You were obviously not paying enough attention then because he won a tackle in the first twenty minutes dropping deep from the false nine position (triggering the press) Emery played him as.
Maybe if he played CM he you might have a point.
The worry is when supporters become pom-pom wavers and blind sheeps pinning blames on irrelevancies instead of saying it as it is
Oh the fucking irony
Victorious You don’t seem to understand that it will take some time for the players to fibg their feet to adapt to the new system. The worry is when supporters become pom-pom wavers and blind sheeps pinning blames on irrelevancies instead of saying it as it is, Agreed. Except if you have followed what was posted here during both games we all have. And you should know why. We all want out club to progress. So instead of writing such inanities, support the team (which i know you do) and most importantly the manager in his hard task in getting… Read more »
*find
You were obviously not paying enough attention then because he won a tackle in the first twenty minutes dropping deep from the false nine position One tackle? Wow…why oh why was he hooked off in the 56th minute and dropped for the next game? You kind of proved my point. He was absolutely dogshit in that game and yet all you’ve ever talked about was that one run and cross and one tackle in the first 20 minutes oh and something about him being subbed because of his contract situation. Only see the positives. Is there any wonder why our… Read more »
victorious What an utter douchebag you are. Your use of the English dictionary to construct your posts on here is becoming rather predictable and somewhat tedious. I was freezing my balls off on the North bank long before you were even conceived, so please don’t talk to me about loyalty to supporting the club. I gather from your non response to previous communications on the subject, your allegiance commenced around 1996. Am I right? As I have stated on here many times before, if Wenger had stayed, I would have had no hesitation in jogging along occasionally to watch either… Read more »
Paulinho
“Pierre – Did you pay any attention whatsoever to us when we won all those titles?Vieira and Petit took the game to the opposition, and didn’t spend the whole match in front of the back four.”
Not a very good example Paulinho,comparing ramsey with those 2…
Vieira and Petit were there predominantly to protect the defence and recycle the ball.
They were rarely caught out of position.
They were rarely ahead of the ball
They were rarely in the oppositions box during open play.
They played their roles to perfection and were a great partnership.